Friday, 26 August 2011

Cowal Games 5k

I'd not done this race before, but I assumed it would be pretty similar to the Willie Jukes 5-miler that heads south out of Dunoon along the coast road. I took the new Argyll Ferries passenger service across from Gourock, and met Mick McLoone and Sean Gaffney on the boat, so I knew immediately I'd have some competition. The registration was at Queens Hall and the race began outside the Yachtsman Cafe. Just prior to kick off, I bumped into my old work colleague Andrew Swift who I thought lived down near Oxford or Bristol, but in fact turned out to live right here in Dunoon.

I could see from the starting line up that I would finish anywhere between 2nd and 6th, depending on whether I could live with the pace. On the whistle I lead out out the field for the first 100 metres, before Stephen Trainer drew alongside. I then matched him for another few hundred metres before suddenly deciding to drop in behind him for some shelter from a noticeable south westerly breeze. I managed to sit right behind Stephen up until about the first kilometre, but then started to drop back and was immediately caught by Mick McLoone who was running with Sean Gaffney. I tried to go with these guys, but was suddenly feeling quite jaded and didn't have the confidence to press the pace. This meant that I was also caught by Dave Henderson and Steven Campbell, and was getting closed down by an Inverclyde guy. At the turn, I managed to find just enough extra to pull away from the Inverclyde guy, and at this point I should really have been charging after the 4 guys in front, but I couldn't quite raise my game. In the final kilometre, I was toying with the idea of catching Sean Gaffney who had been dropped by the 4 Glenpark boys, but I couldn't dredge up that extra % to close the gap.

I wasn't really thinking about the time that much, so was pleasantly surprised to realise that I'd run 16:50 which is exactly the same time as my 5k PB set back in 2007.